Steve Schmidt's war against Palin

Steve Schmidt spent 10 weeks building up Sarah Palin, and the two of them have spent a good part of the past 14 months tearing each other down.

A losing campaign always brings out the knives, but they are usually wielded in the shadows. The pure spectacle of a former campaign strategist going on national television to trash the candidate whose image he once stage-managed — as Schmidt did Sunday on “60 Minutes” — is virtually unprecedented.

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Among Washington operatives, the response to Schmidt ranges from quiet admiration for telling uncomfortable truths to mystification that he and Palin would belabor internal disputes that in an earlier era of politics would have stayed behind closed doors.

At least a half-dozen Republican operatives declined to discuss the matter, instead voicing the plaintive hope the dispute will simply go away. But one Democrat praised Schmidt’s willingness to take a stand, even at the risk of hurting his livelihood as a California political consultant.

“I don’t think he has anything to gain from it. It’s not going to get Schmidt a whole lot of clients in the Republican Party, and he’s not selling a book. So it just may be that he is telling the truth,” said Paul Begala, a former Clinton White House adviser.

Schmidt’s comments on “60 Minutes” with the authors of “ Game Change” were somewhat measured. He praised Palin for her convention speech and debate performance. But he also said there were “numerous instances” when Palin said things that weren’t correct and “that opened the door to criticism that she was being untruthful and inaccurate. And I think that that is something that continues to this day.”

He also demurred when asked whether, given a second chance, he’d advocate for the Palin pick as he did in the run-up to the Republican Party convention. “You don’t get to go back in time,” Schmidt replied, although he conceded John McCain’s margin of loss would have been greater without Palin on the ticket.

Schmidt’s decision to use such an extraordinary, public platform to settle the score with a former political client took a classic Washington blame game to an entirely new level. But such feuds are hardly unprecedented.

When Dan Quayle became George H.W. Bush’s surprise vice presidential pick, James Baker, his campaign manager, used his allies in the media to distance himself from the decision.

Former White House adviser Dick Morris built an entirely new career around trashing his former boss, Bill Clinton, after he was reelected to a second term in 1996.

Both former Clinton adviser George Stephanopoulos and Bush spokesman Scott McClellan aired dirty laundry in tell-all books published while their former bosses were still in office.

But Schmidt isn’t positioning himself to go as far as Morris. His primary boss in the 2008 campaign was McCain, and he hasn’t a harsh word to say about the Arizona senator. In addition, he isn’t writing a memoir of the campaign that would benefit from a bit of controversy.

“He played a real role in putting Palin a heartbeat away from the presidency. I wonder if he feels bad about it,” said Begala.

John Ziegler, a Palin ally, said Schmidt “is trying to justify an incredibly, poorly run campaign on his part. His career has been greatly damaged in Republican circles. Why would anyone hire Steve Schmidt? He’s tried to torpedo the most popular Republican that there is after running a horrendous presidential campaign.”